Thursday, January 2, 2014

Fantasy Golf: The Hyundai Preview

Scroll down for parts one and two of the Fantasy Golf Report's full season preview. Part 3 featuring the winners of the majors, WGC events and the Players is in the works but for now lets bang-out some picks for this weekend's Hyundai Tournament of Champions. The winners list of the TOC has been a bit of a mixed bag over the last few years ranging from "high" quality (Dustin Johnson and Steve Stricker) to "mid-level" quality (Geoff Ogilvy and Jonathan Byrd) to "what freakin' tournament did that guy win to get into this thing?" quality (Daniel Chopra).

Based on that somewhat random shot dispersion, I tend to avoid using a high quality pick on this event - opting for more of a solid mid-level player who either finished the previous year playing well or has a history of success at Kapalua. Based on that criteria, I'm liking Gary Woodland who finished 2nd at the CIMB Classic in October and played well enough down the stretch to make the Tour Championship and Martin Laird who has 2nd and 4th place finishes in this event. The overall tournament favorites and my one and done picks are below.* This year we will be providing the added feature of odds courtesy of www.paddypower.com because at the Fantasy Golf Report, we never stop working for you (until we get really busy with other things or we forget to follow-through on what we promised but for now, you the readers are our number one priority).

Aloha from the FGR and welcome to 2014.
May your opponents' picks miss many cuts.

The Favorites

1. Adam Scott - 11 to 2

2. Dustin Johnson - 7 to 1

3. Matt Kuchar - 8 to 1

4. Webb Simpson - 9 to 1

5. Zach Johnson - 14 to 1

The FGR One and Done Picks

1. Gary Woodland - 25 to 1

2. Martin Laird - 28 to 1

3. Jimmy Walker - 22 to 1

4. Boo Weekley - 50 to 1

5. Chris Kirk - 25 to 1

Endnote

* I also post my picks for the fantasy games run by PGATour.com and the Golf Channel over in the right-hand column. I used to do Yahoo but that format is a joke and if the people at Yahoo aren't going to care enough to set-up their game for the first week with the players who are actually entered in the event, then screw 'em.